The sub-committee of the Methodist Church in Fiji which prepared a submission to the iTaukei Affairs Ministry on the Proposed Village By-Laws, went beyond its terms of reference in the points it made.  

The Standing Committee of the Church had tasked the sub-committee with calling for more time for submissions, open dialogue and participatory decision-making in the case of the Proposed Village By-Laws, which is the hallmark of democratic governance.  

It has been ascertained that the team that prepared the submission did not include the full sub-committee which would not have agreed to the version of the submission which was sent out.

Senior members of the Church were not at the meeting and not consulted on the final draft. This represents a serious breach of Church procedure and will be addressed at the next Standing Committee meeting. The Church Leadership will be discussing this matter with the Sub-committee.

Yesterday the Methodist Church in Fiji General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Epineri Vakadewavosa, spoke with the RFMF Land Force Commander to respond to the recent statement issued by the RFMF on the Methodist Church’s submission. He made it clear that that submission is not representative of the views of the Church Leadership or the Standing Committee and not reflective of the direction that the Methodist community of faith is trying to head in its Lako Yani Vou / New Exodus.

This morning Rev. Dr. Vakadewavosa also spoke with the Prime Minister at his earliest convenience, to reiterate the Church’s apolitical stance and that the Church will maintain its integrity in terms of upholding the values of living in harmony with all people of all faiths as protected in the 2013 Constitution.  The church remains committed to working with the government on issues of Climate Change, Gender-Based Violence, Education and Social Welfare, which are part of Christian life and important pillars of the Church.  

The Methodist Church will not allow itself to be used or manipulated for political gain by any individual or organisation. The Church remains committed to speak in love to amplify the voices of those who feel they are not being heard.

As the Church leadership has previously mentioned, they will continue to work with government and all stakeholders for a peaceful and just society in Fiji.  
 
ENDS

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: According to information received by Fijivillage, a sub-committee of the Methodist Church in Fiji had asked the government not to enact proposed village by laws, the Great Council of Chiefs to be reinstated and Fiji to be made a Christian State.

The five-point submission put up by the church’s standing committee also wanted immediate open consultation with the Itaukei along with the removal of 17 decrees and policies which the church claims breach ILO Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the rights of the indigenous people.

The sub-committee of the Methodist Church also wanted an extended timeline to review the proposed village by laws and review the 2013 Constitution.

They are again calling for the review of the constitution and also want Fiji to be a Christian state, in accordance with the clear stipulations of the Deed of Cession, and the wishes of the chiefs and people of Fiji, as expressed in the “Wakaya Letter.”

Meanwhile, we have tried to get a confirmation whether the Methodist Church in Fiji went to its members as a number of members have stated that they were never asked about the submissions and their views.

Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka
MajGen(Retired) CF, OBE (Mil), O St J, MSD, Legion D’Honneur (FR), Order of Tahiti Nui, jssc, psc, MSc
9 Donu Place, Namadi Heights
Box 2437 Government Buildings, Suva, Fiji
Telephone: +679 3323753; Mobile: +679 9937023
Email: [email protected]

31 August 2015
 
Mr Pio Tabaiwalu
Secretary General
SODELPA Headquarters
SUVA
 
Dear Secretary General,
 
It is with a very heavy heart that I write this letter to you in your capacity as Secretary General of the Party I had wanted to join to further my political service to the people of Fiji and the country I love.

I also find that I have no other alternative but to write to you in regards to the Page 1 article in today’s (Monday 31 August) Fiji Sun newspaper headed ‘Rabuka eyed for SODELPA post?’, and other matters.

I was approached by ‘phone by Hon Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who, I believe, was recently elected President of SODELPA, at 1458 hours, Friday 28th August, informing me that there is to be a Special General Meeting of SODELPA at the Epworth Hall on Saturday 5th September 2015.  He also informed me that I would be nominated to be Vice President of the Party.  He did not inform me that my nomination will require an amendment to the Party Constitution to allow for a third Party Vice President, nor did I know if there are other Vice Presidents of the Party.  As you know, I have not been active in any of the Party matters since I was barred from contesting the Elections last year.

To implement this course of action intended at the Special General Meeting would tantamount to ‘tailor-making’ the Constitution of the Party to suit an agenda, namely my inclusion as a Party Official.

If the Party was to do this, then it would weaken its own arguments against the Fiji First Party and Government, whom the Party alleges changed the National Constitution to suit their own individual and group situations and requirements.

You will be aware that I am now not a Financial, or Card – Carrying member of SODELPA.  I did not pay my Candidate’s Nomination Fees before the General Elections of 2014 when my application to stand under the Party banner for that General Election was rejected.  I contributed to some candidates’ campaign because I thought those candidates would serve the people of my village, Tikina and Province well because they understood the needs of my area of Navatu and Cakaudrove, and I also believed they could contribute constructively to the development of our nation.

You are aware of the circumstances that led to my rejection as a Candidate for Party Leader, as well as a Party Candidate in the 2014 General Elections, as conveyed to me by the then President of the Party, Ratu Silivenusi Waqausa.

I was told that my record as Coup Leader of the 1987 Coup would jeopardize the Party’s chances in the Elections, and the Party Leader and now Leader of the Opposition, Hon Ro Teimumu Kepa, the Party’s Youth Wing and the Party’s Women’s Wing strongly objected to my being Party Leader and also my being a Candidate.  Ratu Waqausa also stated, in the presence of a very good friend and comrade in arms during our Army careers, that the Hon Leader of the Opposition, also threatened to resign from the Party, if I was allowed to contest the Elections as a Party candidate.

The final decision, you will recall, was officially conveyed to me by Ratu Waqausa in the presence of one of the members of the Selection Panel, Mr Sekonaia Tui Mailekai, after Mr Laisenia Qarase had excused himself to attend to another pressing business.

I accepted the final decision that was conveyed to me, and expressed my regrets that those members of the Party who opposed my joining the Party and contesting the Elections under the Party banner, had not forgiven me for 1987. I also conveyed my regrets that the Youth and Women’s Wings that champion ‘non-violence’ found it acceptable not to object to my former son in law who brutally beat up my daughter before divorcing her and marrying a woman who became a senior member of the Party’s Women’s Wing and its PR/Media Cell.

I also regretted that the Party did not consider my participation in the corporate leadership of our nation between the years 1992 and 1999, when I was Prime Minister, and particularly my leading the Government Members of Parliament to work in a very cordial manner with the Members of the Opposition, many of whom were victims of the Coup I led in 1987, to reach an unprecedented accord in the promulgation of the all-embracing Constitution Amendment Act of 1997 – the Constitution SODELPA now wishes to champion and bring back into operation.

I do not know if the claim that the Hon Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu had called for the Hon Ro Teimumu Kepa to reconsider her position as Leader of the Opposition after leading SODELPA to an Election defeat in the 2014 Elections, as made in one of the dallies a few days ago is factual or not, but, The Hon Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu made a similar call for me to resign the SVT leadership when he called on me with Hon Ratu Inoke Kubuabola (then a member of SVT), to take personal responsibility for the SVT loss and resign as Party Leader.  I accepted their call and resigned which paved the way for Hon Ratu Inoke to become Party Leader and Leader of the Opposition in 1999 until Speight’s Coup of 2000.  I eventually resigned from Parliament after I was elected Chairman of the Council of Chiefs because it was a ‘Public Office’ and it contravened the Constitution to be both – a Public Officer and Member of Parliament.

Now that I have been invited to attend the SGM, and accept nomination to be a Party Vice President, although I am not a Financial Member of the Party, I wonder what things have changed:

• I have not changed – I am still the person who led the military takeover of Parliament and changed the government in 1987.  Interestingly, the Hon Leader of the Opposition’s late husband served as Attorney General in the post-Coup Government from 1987 – 1992.  Other Party candidates in the 2014 General Elections and Party Officials were under my command in the Army from 1987 to when I resigned in 1991;
• I am still the person that led SVT to defeat in the 1999 General Elections;
• Have the Party Youth Wing and the Party Women’s Wing changed their stance on my participating as a member of SODELPA?
• Has Hon Ro Teimumu Kepa changed her views about my becoming a member of the Party she founded?

These, General Secretary, are some of the issues that SODELPA needs to sort out before getting me involved in Party matters.

Changing the Party rules or its Constitution in order to get me into the Party will not change the views of Party members opposed to my membership of the Party.  If anything, it could further divide the Party and erode the support it currently enjoys.

With respect, I feel that the Party should have been on a Consolidation & Growth journey since the end of Elections last year.  The Officers and Members of the Party should have been visiting their supporters and growing their numbers within Fiji in order to grow the Party support base and consolidate its support among the constituents.  The Party should not risk losing the support of those already in the Party by including someone that some existing members find objectionable.

A final word, Mr. Secretary General, one cannot save a leaking boat by changing the Captain or the Engineer; one must fix the leak (no pun intended).

With the foregoing and if I have not officially done so before, I herewith tender my resignation from SODELPA, and wish you well in your future endeavors.

Yours sincerely,

SL RABUKA

Biman 'removed'

The Fiji Times
Friday, April 28, 2017

OPPOSITION Leader Ro Teimumu Kepa has removed National Federation Party (NFP) leader Professor Biman Prasad as the shadow minister for economy after the party's decision not to form a coalition with SODELPA or any other party for next year's general election.

Ro Teimumu told The Fiji Times yesterday that this was the decision of SODELPA caucus.

However, she personally believes Prof Prasad is the best person and most qualified to fulfil the role of the shadow minister for economy and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) until his resignation.

In a letter to Prof Prasad on Wednesday, Ro Teimumu said: "As you have publicly stated that NFP will not partner or coalesce with any other party prior to the 2018 election, it is therefore imperative to SODELPA to find a parliamentary platform to make known and publicise issues that will benefit us from the 2017/2018 Budget".

"Our members (SODELPA MPs) now believe that it is now an opportune time for a member of the Public Accounts Committee to make the appropriate response to the 2017-2018 Budget addresses," Ro Teimumu said.

"So now he (Prof Prasad) has resigned from the PAC and Standing Orders have changed and the chair for the committee is now a government nominee."

Ro Teimumu said she was not forced by SODELPA leader Sitiveni Rabuka to remove Prof Prasad.

Prof Prasad confirmed receiving the letter from Ro Teimumu.

"I have been removed as shadow minister for economy. While it means I will not deliver the official reply to the 2017-18 Budget, this will not prevent the NFP from effectively dissecting the budget and advocating issues affecting all our citizens," he said.

He thanked Ro Teimumu for having the confidence in him to perform the roles of shadow minister for economy and chairman of PAC until he resigned in May last year after changes to the Standing Orders.

"These were important Opposition parliamentary roles required to be performed effectively and efficiently," Prof Prasad said.

"These are parliamentary roles and have nothing to do with the fact that the NFP is a party on its own and not in a political or parliamentary coalition with any party."

The Impact of Coalitions: Myth and Reality

Part Five
VICTOR LAL

A traditional conception of coalition politics might suggest that political parties compete independently during the election campaign to maximise their potential and engage in coalition bargaining only once the distribution of seats are known. But of course in reality electoral competition and coalition bargaining are not so neatly sequential. After all, one matter that voters are likely to be interested in during the campaign is the identity of the new government to be formed. Most parties want to appear relevant to the business of forming a government in order to attract floating voters. They thus have incentives to suggest that they are well positioned to join a winning coalition. In many countries parties do this either by forming electoral coalitions or at least by signalling with whom they will (and perhaps with whom they will not) try to form a government once the dust has settled and the explicit post-election bargaining begins.

As already noted, the SVT/NFP/UGP was the first to declare itself as a coalition. In March 1999 the FAP/PANU/FLP led by Adi Kuini, Tora, and Chaudhry, announced their coalition.  

Much has been made of the fact that the SVT lost the election because it went into Coalition with the NFP. The same has been said of the defeat of the NFP. The truth is that the SVT lost because the Fijian voters (62 per cent) took their votes to the other Fijian parties. The SVT only got 38 per cent of the Fijian votes. As for the NFP, it is preposterous for the NFP and its politicians to argue that the Indo-Fijians bloc voted for the FLP because they had not forgiven Rabuka and the violence and brutality his two coups had unleashed on them. It might be partly true. However, the Indo-Fijian votes went to the FLP because for the first time the Indo-Fijian community came to its senses that it could not be taken for a ride by the NFP and its leaders like they had done with their lives since 1969. A new generation of Indo-Fijian voters had seen nothing but a slow and steady strangulation of their economic, educational, and political rights by supporting the NFP. The sins of their fathers continued to be visited on their sons as long as they remained under the false protection of the NFP.  

It was the Peoples Coalition which should have been punished at the polls. For the spectre of Apisai Tora and his PANU in coalition with Chaudhry was a far greater evil in the minds of the Indo-Fijian voters than the moderate Reddy and the supposedly born-again Methodist lay preacher Rabuka. Tora evokes far greater fear in the Indo-Fijian community with his past history of racial violence and repeated calls for the expulsion of Indo-Fijians than Rabuka, who had come across before the elections as a committed multi-racialist.  

The Indo-Fijians were acutely aware that Tora had played a leading role in ousting Chaudhry, Reddy, and Bavadra from power in 1987. As we have already demonstrated, the Indo-Fijian voters were more concerned with daily bread and butter issues than the achievements of Reddy and Rabuka giving them a new Constitution. Many Indo-Fijian voters were also acutely aware that the SVT and Rabuka had buckled under international pressure to make changes to the 1990 Constitution. There was no serious change of heart on the part of Rabuka or the SVT as recent events and constitutional developments have once again confirmed.
 
The SVT was politically opportunistic and in order to make up the expected loss of seats to rival Fijian parties, it had gone into coalition with the NFP, believing that the NFP was the party of the Indo-Fijians. The NFP, on the other hand, had taken for granted that the SVT represented the Fijian voters. The confidence and cockiness of the two coalition partners can be seen from their announcement regarding political leadership. If the SVT-NFP Coalition had come to power, Rabuka was to become prime minister and Reddy was supposed to be his deputy prime minister (i.e. a Fijian Prime Minister and an Indo-Fijian Deputy Prime Minister). It is unfair and despicable for both the SVT and NFP leaders to accuse the IndoFijian community of electoral betrayal. It is curious to read that the Indo-Fijians are described as ‘political traitors’ while the non-SVT Fijians are being chided for exercising their democratic rights by casting their votes for other Fijian political parties.  

As we have already shown, the SVT and Rabuka came to power in the 1994 elections because of the bloc votes of the military, the Church, and rural Fijian voters who were beneficiaries of the skewed 1990 Constitution in favour of rural Fijian voters over the urban Fijian voters. The SVT must be also mentally devoid of historical memory.  

It was not their arch rival, a former political saviour and current bogeyman-Mahendra Chaudhry-but their new-found coalition angel Jai Ram Reddy and the NFP which had thrown in their political support for Kamikamica against Rabuka in the 1992 leadership crisis. Maybe, the Fijian voters had a greater retentive memory of Reddy’s part in the leadership contest, which they presumably did, than the SVT and Rabuka. Maybe, they could not trust Reddy in a future government with Rabuka. The SVT must ask itself: Why did it make an electoral pact with the political ‘devils’ in the NFP who had no confidence in their leader Rabuka’s leadership of the nation?.

In passing, we would like to also point out that it is grossly insulting and unfair to blame the Indo-Fijian community for exercising their democratic right to cast their votes for the FLP. Why no call has been made to unite the Indo-Fijians through a new constitution similar to that now being made by the Interim Government, SVT, and the Great Council of Chiefs. Why should and must the Fijians be a united race and the Indo-Fijians a divided race? As we will show one of these days, the Indo-Fijians have always been prepared to embrace multiracialism, and it was for this reason that the Alliance Party was able to stay in power for too long.  

Meanwhile, the 1997 Constitution was taken for granted by the SVT/NFP Coalition as a right of passage to power. Rabuka’s biographer, John Sharpham recounts Rabuka’s optimism as his grip on the country was sliding by the hour: ‘Monday revealed how difficult it was going to be, for late on Monday it was clear that the election was turning into a rout. Reddy and the NFP were being trounced everywhere and by huge margins. Even key NFP candidates who had been tipped to enter Rabuka’s Cabinet, like Wadan Narsey, the young academic turned politician, were comprehensively beaten. Reddy, who had chosen, like Rabuka to run in an open seat, to prove the principle of multiracial support, was beaten handily. Tired, dispirited and unwell, he was ready to retire from politics forever and return to his successful law practice. The NFP lost all nineteen seats of the Indian communal seats to Labour. The eleven Open seats that Rabuka had given the NFP as part of the Coalition arrangement were also in jeopardy.

The NFP had, effectively been destroyed by Chaudhry and the Labour Party, and by their commitment to the multiparty, multiracial Constitution. It was not just the NFP that was being mauled. The SVT was also in deep trouble. Apart from a few seats in the north and Jim Ah Koy’s win in Kadavu, there was little to show for all the hard work. Preferential voting, the AV system, was working against the SVT. Unless a candidate won on the first count, gaining 50 per cent plus one vote, the seat count then went to preferences. All their opposition parties had agreed to place their preferences against the SVT. It was virtually impossible for the SVT candidate to win if the vote went to preferences. The division among the Fijians, their fragmentation into eleven different parties, was now counting against the party that had been created to unite them.’

Rabuka flew into Suva and called a two-hour meeting with Kubuabola and Jim Ah Koy. To quote Sharpham: ‘The mood in the Prime Minister’s office area was a gloomy one. Workmen moved up and down the hall outside making drastic changes to the rooms on the fourth floor. These refurbishments had been planned for the incoming government, expected to be led by Rabuka. A different Cabinet and a new prime Minister would be using these improved facilities. Amidst the gloom of his staff and the noise of the builders Rabuka was upbeat. He talked over the options for the future with Ah Koy and Kubuabola. From time to time, his Cabinet secretary joined them to offer advice about the timing of resigning and conceding. At this stage Rabuka still believed the SVT and the UGP might win twenty seats and so be offered a Cabinet seat. Should they accept and support the multi-party approach? The longer they talked, the clearer the news became that the Labour Party would win a strong mandate. Ah Koy was, from the beginning, all for going into opposition. Eventually the others agreed, but Rabuka wanted to wait another day, just to see the results. He held out no hopes for any change, but the final vote count needed to be announced formally to make the situation absolutely clear.’  

The election results recorded a resounding victory for the Peoples Coalition. Rabuka insisted that the Constitution had been the correct issue on which to fight the election. His SVT had managed to win only eight seats in a new Parliament. The man responsible for this humiliation was no other than Mahendra Pal Chaudhry who had just won his own seat in Ba West. The westerly wind of change was blowing towards the south - the capital Suva- for the Peoples Coalition to occupy the newly furbished office of the Prime Minister. Chaudhry was a strong contender for the most coveted post. ‘I have never lost an election’, Rabuka told his supporters, ‘I am an army man and I have learned you must always be prepared for defeat’. The truth of the matter was Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party had regained what Rabuka had stolen from them at the point of a gun in 1987. His nemesis was a man called Chaudhry.

As Sharpham notes, ‘The final results of the election showed the devastation that the hurricane called Chaudhry, had caused to Rabuka’s Coalition. The SVT held just eight seats, enough to be invited to hold a Cabinet seat, but which Rabuka had rejected. The NFP had not won a single seat, while the UGP had done its part and won two. Chaudhry and the Fiji Labour Party had had a magnificent victory winning a mandate in their own right with 37 seats. The FAP had won ten seats, two more than the SVT, giving them a right to say they spoke for the Fijians, and PANU had own four.

The Peoples Coalition had an overwhelming hold on the House of Representatives with 51 of the 71 seats. Rabuka, for his part, believed Chaudhry and his supporters had acted against the spirit of the new Constitution. He was dismayed that race was still so dominant a political factor, especially among the IndoFijians’.

As we have already stated, Rabuka’s statement was a perversity of truth and reality. The Indo-Fijians could no longer be taken for a ride by the NFP, especially the new breed of Indo-Fijian voters. The enemy, in fact, was from within the Fijian community. They were no longer going to be fooled by the SVT, especially over 60 per cent of the Fijian voters. They had voted en bloc for other Fijian parties. Race had been subsumed in the politics of coalition. And only one of the two Coalitions was bound to emerge as a political winner. In this instance, it was the Chaudhry led Peoples Coalition.

The former army commander had taken his troops into the electoral battle without any major preparation and was comprehensively beaten at the polls. As they say in military language, his electoral troops were called upon to take on the political enemy on empty stomachs.  

In the next column, we will show how the Fijians inside the Coalition shamelessly tried to take advantage of the provisions for power sharing in the 1997 Constitution as they raced for the Prime Minister, fatally damaging Mahendra Chaudhry in the process.

The Fijian nationalists and the SVT had no opportunity to directly invoke the ‘Race Card’ in the appointment of a new Prime Minister because they were not a part of the winning Coalition. Adi Kuini Speed and Apisai Tora however sanctioned the race card in the eyes of grassroots Fijians throughout Fiji by trying to put forward a Prime Minister of Fijian origin.  

Chaudhry’s political world was thus bound to fall apart, and only Time was the silent spectator to tell when, how, and by whom in the murky world of Fijian tribal politics.

“Preface on republishing: Monopoly Capital, White Racism and Super-profits in  Fiji: A Case Study of CSR (1979)“

Recently, some Fiji academics organized a conference commemorating the arrival of the last Indian indentured laborers ship to Fiji and asked me to contribute. I thought that I would republish my 1979 article on CSR’s exploitation of indentured laborers and small cane farmers, but with a new Preface to emphasize that Fiji has moved on, that there are other racisms in Fiji that need to be tackled other than the colonial white racism, that our own local companies are as bad, if not worse local exploiters of workers today than the old colonial white companies of CSR, Carpenters and Burns Philp, and that we should  not forget the many decent white residents  of Fiji (including British civil servants) who lived exemplary professional lives, free of corruption. The girmitiya conference took place a few weeks ago. The book was not able to be launched at the conference but is available at the USP Book Centre.

A debate taking place currently in Fijileaks reminds us also that there were far worse systems of real slavery of Africans and others taking place a couple of hundred years ago, and that in Fiji there was also horrible racism some continuing today against indigenous Fijians and those “blackbirded” (enslaved) laborers from Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, whose descendants still suffer in Fiji today, very much neglected. The new Preface from the republished monograph may have some relevance to this debate in Fijileaks.

From my Preface (2017): why republish?This monograph is based on a long article originally published in the Journal of Pacific Studies in 1979, to commemorate the centenary of the arrival of the indentured labourers (girmitiya) to Fiji. There are several reasons for republishing this article. First, the old JPS editions and the article have not been easily accessible to students and researchers and seem to have “fallen off the radar” of subsequent researchers. This publication (as hard copy and eBook) will hopefully remedy that.

Second, leading Fiji academics are holding a conference (22 to 24 March 2017) to commemorate the date of arrival of the last ship with the Indian labourers. I am grateful to the conference organizers (Dr Ganesh Chand, Professor Biman Prasad and Dr Rajni Chand) for agreeing to launch this monograph at the conference.

Third, despite the several good policies brought in by the Bainimarama Government (such as in freeing up preschools and education in general), their policies on the struggling sugar industry leave much to be desired and hark back to the colonial past.

Fourth, a re-examination of the colonial past ought to make us think not just of the racism and economic exploitation by the whites in colonial Fiji, corporate entities or governments, but also about our internal racisms and economic exploitation of our workers and farmers by our own capitalists.

A new girmit era for the sugar industry?

This old JPS article has recently acquired a historical significance. Tactics used by the colonial government and CSR (as indicated in this monograph) are being revisited by post-independence governments and Fiji Sugar Corporation (the successor of CSR). Stakeholders in the sugar industry today need to learn from history if they are to better understand their current predicament and not repeat mistakes.

Recently, the Bainimarama Government pushed through without consultation with the cane farmers, the 2015 Sugar Industry (Amendment) Bill. Hon. Professor Biman Prasad (Leader of the National Federation Party (NFP) in parliament condemned the Bill which effectively ended democracy in the Sugar Cane Growers Council probably to allow government to dictate changes in the Master Award. Professor Prasad protested that “the farmers, their families, the cane cutters, lorry operators, lorry drivers, labourers and farm hands have every right to feel demoralised. They are entitled to the same transparency and accountability the Government repeatedly promises to Fiji’s people. But now their Council will be completely undemocratic and unrepresentative, selected for their loyalty to the Government and not to the farmers.”

Another NFP MP at the time, Roko Tupou Draunidalo pointed out that the entire sugar industry, including the farmers, the mills and fertilizer company, was controlled by the Bainimarama Government dictatorship, with cane growers being reduced to “mere pawns, battered from pillar to post and asked to pay through direct and indirect taxes again through the administration of an organisation that they have no say or control over. This is reminiscent of the days of CSR when the master imposed his will on helpless growers. One would have thought, Madam Speaker, that the Girmit ended 99 years ago, but this Bill is enslaving growers into Girmit once again.”
The NFP warned that history would judge the Bainimarama Government harshly. But I suggest that it is for farmers to first know the history of the their forefathers in the girmit era, part of which is given in this monograph.    

Unfortunately, while the current government’s political policies may be similar to those of the colonial government and CSR, the horrible difference is that the sugar industry has virtually collapsed under the current dictatorship, without the economic productivity of the colonial era. Since the Bainimarama coup of 2006, sugar cane and sugar production had virtually halved, while government Ministers and Permanent Secretaries for the sugar industry, and government appointed CEOs of FSC have issued endless optimistic forecasts for the last ten years, until quietly departing.

Ignoring our internal racisms

The reference to “white” racism in the title of the original JPS article reflects the pre-occupation that Indo-Fijian academics in that era (myself included) had with the racism by the colonial state and whites in Fiji against Indo-Fijians. Thus most accounts of the colonial sugar industry (this monograph included) focused on the racist exploitation of the girmitiya by the white owned CSR with the assistance of the white dominated colonial government.

But my experience in the last twenty five years suggests that neither racism nor economic exploitation of farmers and workers is the preserve of whites. Yet it is extremely odd that in the Indo-Fijian academic discourse, which in recent years have also been criticizing, with much justification, the racism by indigenous Fijian ethno-nationalists against Indo-Fijians during the coups of 1987 and 2000, there is little mention of the many internal Indo-Fijian racisms between Gujarati, Hindustani, South Indian, North Indian, upper and lower castes, and the many other sub-groups.

I have from childhood been aware of the Gujarati community being racist towards Hindustani derogatively calling them kakka and discouraging marriages between their children. But there also has been the converse, with Hindustani being racist towards Gujarati (derogatively calling them Bombaiya khijdri) although I never expected it would to be directed towards me personally, given my multiracial life and work.

But during the 1999 elections in which I was seeking re-election to the Fiji Parliament, some Hindustani political opponents, purely to obtain Hindustani votes, accused me of being a Gujarati economist “in the pockets” of Gujarati businessmen, who were allegedly exploiting the descendants of the girmitiya. These politicians well knew that I had been a founding member of the Fiji Labour Party and as an economist had supported for thirty years all working people of Fiji, including the descendants of girmitiya. Certainly Gujarati employers did not see me as a friend or even “in their pockets”. Some political opponents would have known of my 1979 JPS article (reprinted here) and some former USP students would have known of the even earlier 1974 UNISPAC article (included in this monograph as an Annex) on the plight of Koronubu and Field 40 cane farmers facing expiring land leases.

Then, when I had thought that the anti-Gujarati sentiments were a thing of the past, I had the shock of receiving at the end of 2014, a vicious email from an Indo-Fijian Australian resident (a graduate of USP) who castigated me that I as a Gujarati had no right to be making comments on Fiji, and that I should ‘return to India where I belonged’.

This racism against Gujarati, not isolated by any means, may have been driven by anger at the enormous influence that a few Gujarati businesses have in the Fiji economy today. But it lumps together all Gujarati, capitalists, workers and professionals, including academics like me who have fought over the years for the livelihoods of the girmitiya and their descendants. It is paradoxical that some of the anti-Gujarati sentiments are coming from passionate supporters of Bainimarama who is extremely close to the Gujarati businessmen and for instance, accedes to their pressure to postpone Wages Councils Orders. It goes without saying, of course, that Gujarati businessmen, like businessmen of all ethnicities, also provide employment and incomes in Fiji.

It is also unfortunate that some Hindustani writers on the history of Indo-Fijians have largely ignored, deliberately or otherwise, the work of Fiji’s Gujarati academics including Dr Padma Narsey Lal who has written volumes on the problems of the sugar industry (including Ganna) as well as that of her  husband, historian Professor Brij Lal, both being thanked for their services by being banned from Fiji by the Bainimarama Government.

It is worrying that there have been some politicians who have used the sufferings of the original girmitiya to drive wedges between the descendants of the girmitiya and the descendants of other ethnic Indo-Fijians like Gujarati. I can personally attest that the children of working class Gujarati, like my family, have had very similar upbringings and hardships to the descendants of girmitiya. One might also say the same of many working class or rural indigenous Fijians, Chinese, and kailoma.

It is not healthy that academics today generally ignore other non-white racisms in Fiji: Eastern Fijians against the Colo hill tribes; “part-Europeans” (now “part-Fijians”) against other non-white Fijians; while wild generalizations are also made against the Muslims and Chinese. It is a continuing national tragedy that ethnic tensions are never far from the surface, despite the Bainimarama Government’s frequent message that “we are all Fijians”. One hopes that this is not just a political illusion to be shattered in the future, as it has been so many times before.

While I would not wish to underplay the force of white racism in colonial Fiji, nevertheless there also were many whites in colonial Fiji, including colonial civil servants and others, who were decent multiracial members of Fiji society, and who ought not to be tarred by the same brush as might even be inferred by the title of my 1979 article. While I have been tempted for all the above reasons, to change the title from “white racism” to “racism”, I have refrained from doing so, as the old cumbersome title also reflects the Indo-Fijian academics’ preoccupation with racism by whites against non-whites, while refraining from turning their critical spotlight on their own internal racisms.

Worse non-white exploiters today

This article was written in 1979, when USP academics (like myself, Brij Lal, Jai Narayan, Vijay Naidu, Raymond Pillay, Satendra Nandan, Subramani and Simione Durutalo, were preoccupied with foreign (Australian, NZ and British colonial government) exploitation of the Fiji economy and people. It is paradoxical therefore that in the last forty years of politically independent Fiji, the local non-white capitalists have shown themselves to be as, if not more rapacious than the CSR criticized in this article, or Australian giants Burns Philp and Carpenters criticized in another monograph I was involved in more some forty four years ago.

Indeed, as many of my three decades of writings have tried to explain, our own elected governments have been even more extreme in their attempt to control workers and farmers. It is ironic that today’s employees of white employers and companies generally have better wages and working conditions than the employees with non-white employers, despite all the best efforts of Wages Councils and dedicated clerics like Father Kevin Barr, who I have also assisted over the years. Neo-colonial exploitation is alive and well in Fiji, practised by our own people and no longer the sole domain of foreigners.

I suggest that researchers (and those at the 2017 girmitiya conference) might wish to ponder on my optimistic concluding paragraph of the 1979 article (p. 65 in this monograph)

“Lastly, FSC has dispelled the popular myth that large enterprises should be the domain of private capitalists only. With most of the staff localised and FSC in fact achieving more in production than was ever previously achieved, local expertise can be and has been created to run any large or small enterprises in our economy. The myth that foreign capital and expertise is a necessary component of development should be put to rest once and for all.”

Where did we go wrong? I suspect that a large part of the answer will be the 1987 coup led by Rabuka (and not so shadowy figures behind him), the 2000 coup (instigated by shadowy figures not yet identified) both leading to a massive loss of skilled, technical and professional people, without whom FSC has struggled. The Fiji Bureau of Statistics data indicates that the emigrants are not just Indo-Fijian but of all ethnic groups, including more and more indigenous Fijians in recent years.

I am grateful to the Fiji Museum (William Copeland) for the indenture period pictures which were not in the original JPS article.
Professor Wadan Narsey
Melbourne
2017

26 April 2016

The following statement was issued today by the Leader of Opposition, Hon. Ro Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa

RESTRICTIONS OF MOTIONS, QUESTIONS AND PETITIONS AGAINST THE OPPOSITION

The Government through the Parliament Business Committee and Parliament is imposing severe restrictions on the type of questions, motions and petitions that can be tabled by the Opposition MP's in the House.

This week any question, motion and petition that has to do with the Sugar Industry, with iTaukei and Indigenous Rights and developments within any Opposition MP’s constituency have been refused.

Clearly therefore the Government has been very selective allowing only questions, petitions and motions that do not criticize government, on its policies and programs or that is not likely to gather the support of the public against it.

I have carefully considered this and after discussing the same concerns raised individually and collectively by Opposition MP's, I say in the strongest term that I am seriously disturbed by this apparent interference by the Executive with the independence of the Legislature that is now having the effect of gagging the voices of the people to speak through their representatives in Parliament as it should.

This is a serious interference with the democratic process and I intend to take this up with my counterparts in other Parliaments, UN Agencies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

- ENDS -

Authorised by Honourable Ro Teimumu Vuikaba Kepa
Leader of Opposition
Level 2, Parliament Complex,
Government Buildings,
SUVA, FIJI
Contact: +679 322 5652
Email: [email protected]

Illegally doing Business in Fiji - Qi Chen

Anwar Hussain to Fijileaks, 22 April 2017

Dear Sir/Madam,

Kindly refer all email correspondences below. 

I would like you to question the Director of Immigration as per our emails and highlight this in the news. 

I am trying to help this country from dangerous people entering Fiji and doing business illegally but in return I am being put at fault. 

I feel there is something fishy going on inside with the Director of Immigration. He says he is holding the Chinese National because Police have charged him as there are charges of criminal intimidation against him. When I contacted the Police, I was advised they do not need to hold the person but he should be deported and the Court will be informed to withdraw the case. 

The Police had never requested immigration department to hold the Chinese National for the case. Neither have the Police given any written letter or authority to the Director of Immigration to hold the Chinese National.

Hope this is highlighted in the media for public reference.

In case you need any further clarification, do not hesitate to contact me via email.

Regards,
Anwar

Fijileaks: We will update the story with more details in the next few hours

iTaukei issues
The Fiji Times
Monday, April 24, 2017

WITH Fiji's indigenous people accounting for about 60 per cent of the country's population, their concerns will be important in the 2018 General Election.

Also, political parties need to play their cards well if they want to get their votes.

Professor Vijay Naidu, of USP's school of Governance, Development and International Affairs, made reference to the 2014 General Election, saying Fiji's ethnic minorities voted overwhelmingly for the ruling FijiFirst party and its leader on ethnic lines because the voters wanted "security and safety".

This time, with the iTaukei population likely to be representing the largest category of voters, issues that have been affecting them for some years should be the key focus for political parties, the former electoral commissioner suggested.

These issues include land rights, qoliqoli rights, land rentals and natural resources.

"By virtue of fact, the iTaukei people are the customary owners and for several years, they have been preoccupied about the ownership," he said.

Prof Naidu said the 2018 polls would also be contested over the FijiFirst track record as government over the past four years, and whether or not their policies benefitted citizens equitably in terms of ethnicity, gender, age, geographical regions and whether citizens have enjoyed the freedoms associated with the democratic transition.

He said ethnic voting, religious voting and degree class-based voting would continue in the country.

He said it was "very much incumbent on the political parties to make appeals beyond particular ethnicities to win a wider cross section of votes.

"Citizens have common concerns, which include cost of living, housing, poverty, wages, employment, infrastructure and utilities.

"However, there are ethnic issues such as scholarships, land ownership and access, status of chiefs, perceptions of inequality and poverty and the loss of affirmative action policies which can be used to mobilise support along ethnic lines."

He said there were many advantages of voting along ethnic lines, but its disadvantages were divisive.

"The disadvantage is that voting along ethnic lines can be divisive and work against national unity and solidarity. There are issues that may affect particular ethnic groups which can be given leverage by the ethnically-elected MP.

"The closure of the Penang mill has an ethnic dimension for instance."

Prof Naidu said there were issues with the current single national constituency, which made it nearly impossible for election candidates and MPs to be identified with local communities.

"There might be block voting along ethnic, sub-ethnic and denominational lines, and MPs will know where their votes came from, and who to speak for.

"However, with the presidential type of leader-based electoral arrangement, most MPs tend to be quiet as church mice."

Prof Naidu adds: "With iTaukei being close to 60 per cent of the population, they are likely to be the largest category of voters although their registration as voters does not always correlate with their total population figures."

EXCERPT from Professor Wadan Narsey

1988 coup protest and a night at the Police Station

On the first anniversary of the 1987 coup, a group of USP academics and other activists (including some Catholic priests) protested at the Sukuna Park.  A “Group of 18” (including a certain Aiyaz Khaiyum) was arrested and put into the cells for the night, where in the middle of the night, while they were singing Fiji’s national anthem (and in the morning they sang Cat Stevens’ “Morning has Broken”), they faced diesel fumes being directed through their cell windows. The 18 comprised three Catholic priests, seven USP and associated staff, volunteer social workers, students, and a technician from FM96. We university lecturers, were (in order the names appeared in the Fiji Times front page news item:

Amelia Rokotuivuna     Atu Bain                        Arlene Griffen             Peni Moore
Patricia Jalal                 Jane Ricketts                Debbie Mue                Emma Druavesi
Judith Denaro               Vijay Naidu                  Wadan Narsey              Fr Tom Rouse
Fr Paul Tierney             Fr John McEvoy           Kenneth Zinck             Radha Krishna
Aiyaz Khaiyum             Larry Thomas

The names are interesting today, simply because so many in this group, so passionately opposed to the 1987 coup,  became supporters of the Bainimarama military coup.  What a fantastic research topic this would be.
There was social outrage.  Fiji Times bravely fired off an Editorial expressing great concern. Lawyers Mehboob Raza, Sir John Falvey, Sidik Koya and Miles Johnson fronted up to represent the 18 in court (a commitment to ethics that is somewhat missing in the Fiji Law Society today).

Judge Davendra Pathik ruled that the 18 had “wilfully and unlawfully held a meeting at Sukuna Park without a permit”. Nevertheless, he granted the 18 “an absolute discharge without conviction bearing in mind the mitigating factors…. you are to be commended for your lofty ideas… freedom of speech and association was guaranteed for every citizen…”.

Compare these views of Judge Pathik in 1988, with his pro-Bainimarama judgments after the 2006 military coup.
https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/usp-academics-in-the-1980s-political-storms/